


dugdhapadi

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Baahubali AU fics [7]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Rajmata Devasena, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Ficlet, Grief, Margazhi in Mahishmati, Oneshot, Quintuple Drabble, Widowhood, lots of characters major and minor die in order to set up this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21644683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: A Rajmata, with two children to raise and a kingdom to rule. Devasena walks in Sivagami’s footsteps. AU.dugdhapadi (Sanskrit): whose footstep is milk
Relationships: Amarendra Baahubali/Devasena
Series: Baahubali AU fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582546
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17
Collections: Margazhi in Mahishmati 2019





	dugdhapadi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weaslayyy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/gifts).



> AU backstory for this fic: the circumstances that lead to Amarendra’s and Sivagami’s deaths are the same as in canon, except Bhalla married some woman and fathered Bhadra, who is somewhat younger than Mahendra, and Bhalla was caught and executed. This fic focuses less on the plotty details and more on Devasena’s state of mind as she settles into her new role of widow, mother, and Rajmata.
> 
> I’m sorry that this isn’t quite Amarsena in the way you asked, but I really liked the image of Devasena finding herself in Sivagami’s shoes and having to decide where to go from there!

The halls of Mahishmati are empty.

Their Rajmata is dead, both her sons with her, and Bhalla’s pale, listless wife is the latest to follow them. 

The halls of Mahishmati are empty but for Devasena, her precious Mahendra, and the squalling, sniffle-ridden bundle that comes into this world on a tidal wave of blood. She half-wishes that it had followed its mother to the grave, and she half-wishes that she herself could join the rest of the royal family. To be anywhere but these halls.

It is so quiet and so loud and all Devasena wants to do is _scream_.

* * *

Jayasena is incandescent on her behalf, but it’s Sumitra’s fury that is truly terrifying to behold. Sumitra was always so calm, so steady, blunting Devasena’s heedless rage. Now Sumitra’s countenance is ravaged and ugly and contorted, after learning how Kumar Varma, her child-brother, her last living blood-kin, was so cruelly and senselessly butchered.

“Come back to Kuntala,” she demands of Devasena, even more vociferously than Jayasena had. “Leave ungrateful Mahishmati to rot.”

Devasena shakes her head sadly. The people of Mahishmati took her and her Baahu in when they had nothing left, and she will not ( _cannot_ ) abandon them now.

* * *

She thinks of Sivagami, despite herself.

She would be blind not to notice the parallels. A foreign Rajmata with a sister-in-law dying in childbirth, a son and an orphaned nephew to raise without letting their fathers’ bitter feud bleed into their generation, a treacherous court teeming with conspiracies to unravel.

The realization brings Devasena peace and fear in equal measure. Peace, to feel something not yet forgiveness but no longer hatred and maybe even sympathy for the woman who raised her husband. And fear, too, that if she shares Sivagami’s circumstances so scrupulously, how well might she share Sivagami’s fate?

* * *

The warmth of his arms is a gossamer thing she chases in her dreams. She sculpts Mahendra in his image, until Baahu murmurs in her ear to remind her that it is no shameful thing for a son to take after his mother. She masters four arrows, then five, then six, and his hands ghost along hers. Some days she’s almost used to his absence, and on others it is as raw as the first day. She imagines him by her side, in the throne next to hers on the dais, and she likes to think she’s made him proud.

* * *

She has no idea what to do with two heirs. 

For all that she shares Sivagami’s life and Sivagami’s stubbornness, she does not share her ambition of raising two sons for one throne with no jealousy between them. Some days, she dreams of banishing Bhadra to his mother’s kingdom, there to languish and leaving Mahishmati for her precious Mahendra. A cruel thing, to strike a child’s paternal roots from his life, but what can she do when both boys have equally strong claims to the throne? Sivagami could not answer that question. Baahu could not.

Perhaps Devasena will. Devasena must.


End file.
